Bounce House “interview” with Twice Different!

Our interview with the Twice Different Team, the developers of Bounce House

As usual, we were not hired or paid to feature this game. If it’s bad, we’ll tell you it’s bad.

Did you enjoy our “rather stupid” review of a game featuring a guy who steals candy off children, knocks random kids out of a mega jumping castle, and generally wrecks havoc on anyone just trying to have a good time… No? Then you can read our review here…

Today we would like to share with you our interview with the Twice Different Team, the developers of this very interesting title.

Before we start we’d like to thank the Twice Different Team for participating in our interview and for answering all of our geeky questions! Thanks guys!

…and without further ado, our interview begins…

The Interview

Ok first up, why did you decide to make Bounce House?

Simon: I was actually at a friend’s place last year and her 3 daughters were running around the house, fuelled by chocolate and cookies. I hadn’t met them before, but they were asking all the adults there to play with them on the trampoline. Then they approached me, and I was so down for that!

So there I am bouncing on this tiny circular trampoline, trying not to crush the host’s kids or send them skyward with a well-timed double bounce… But Bounce House is a game where you can really set aside those cultural and ethical norms and really ruin the day of children happily bouncing on an endless bounce house.

Can you tell us a little about how the cute 3D visuals were made in Bounce House?

Simon: Sure thing! I’ve been a concept artist/illustrator for ~10yrs and actually used this as a stepping stone to learn more 3D. I created all the 3D assets with Blender and use a combo of Photoshop and Illustrator to texture them. The style I wanted to hit took cues from many things including Wind Waker, Katamari, Adventure Time and old school Nickelodeon cartoons. I wanted all characters to have simple shape heads with rounded corners if something more angular, and bodies that have a sort of sharpness to them but still end up looking reminiscent of a child’s drawing in proportions and simplicity.

Here’s a very early prototype showing how gross and rudimentary some of the earliest implementations were.

Here’s our next iteration on characters – as you can see the pink and orange kids didn’t change much from there. Our game looked veeeery different early on!

What advice would you give a new player trying Bounce House for the first time?

Don’t panic 😃

Tap where you want to land so it sets you up to bounce over obstacles, and you can use swipe to help reposition yourself. The game looks deceptively simple but there’s actually a fair bit of mastery in the controls, and when you get the hang of them it feels like you’re breezing through performing acrobatics.

Ok, now for some geeky questions. What programming language and or software did you use when making Bounce House?

Matt: We use Unity and C#. I’ve been using Unity for over 8 years now and it’s always improving. For a small team like ours, it saves countless hours.

Simon: This was also a great chance for me to explore more of Unity, especially the particle systems, which I really enjoyed.

What was the hardest problem you needed to overcome when developing Bounce House?

Simon: One of the problems early on was getting a sense of progression. Our first prototype was a single screen game where you avoided bombs and hazards on the Bounce House. It was more like a single screen version of the TV show Wipeout, and it was equally challenging!

It didn’t quite nail the game narrative we wanted though, which was “a game about bouncing children off a bounce house.” We also noticed when handing it to people for testing that it was a bit too abstract and didn’t compel people to try again or get better/further.

We still want to add more sense of progression to the released version. We’re continuing work on updates with all sorts of content and optimisations. One of the other hurdles was that Matt and I haven’t released a full mobile game of our own before, so this was a massive learning experience, and the more we learn the more wisdom we can channel back into the game to iterate and make it better. Stay tuned!

Last question. Where do you get your inspiration or ideas from?

Simon: Life mostly. Seeing humor or mechanics in things happening around me, and then discussing ideas or observations with others.

Matt: Playing other games, talking to people and getting feedback. Finding out which aspects they enjoy.

A few words to Bounce House fans on Edamame Reviews.

We’ve just released a Halloween update so get in on that! It has a new theme and some amusing Halloween characters. Plus there’s a Flappy Bat minigame!

Otherwise, you can keep an eye on the Twice Different Facebook Page for updates and new game announcements! We’ll have something else to share in coming months 😉

Lastly a few words on how you feel about Edamame Reviews and our service.

Edamame Reviews are very well-written, and I’m super appreciative of the hilarious review for Bounce House. It’s a great service and rare to find such a high quality, accessible game reviewer. Thanks for engaging with us!

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